Defence in the World

Part of Business of the House – in the House of Commons at 3:58 pm on 8 May 2008.

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Photo of Quentin Davies Quentin Davies Labour, Grantham and Stamford 3:58, 8 May 2008

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point.

The judgment of the hon. Member for Woodspring needs to be reflected on, most urgently by the hon. Gentleman himself but also by his colleagues on the Conservative Benches— [ Interruption. ] No, I have not quite finished on this subject. The Secretary of State revealed something else that I found absolutely extraordinary. I listened to it with amazement, but I know that I heard the words quite clearly, and I think that I understand the English language. It appears that the hon. Member for Woodspring has put on his website a proposal that NATO should buy up the poppy crop in Afghanistan. I cannot think of anything quite so ludicrously misconceived. To do that would enormously increase the demand for the poppies and create an enormous increase in production. It would also greatly increase the dependence of farmers and peasants in Afghanistan on poppy production and divert them from diversification into the other crops that we are trying to encourage them to grow.

That is an extraordinarily ill thought-through set of policies. I raise this matter not because I wish to justify my leaving the Conservative party—I do not need to do that; I am very happy with my decision—but because I believe that the public need to be warned. The opinion polls show that the Tories are in the lead. That means that, if there were a general election tomorrow—I do not suppose there will be—and if the polls were reasonably accurate, we would have a Conservative Government and a Secretary of State for Defence with an obsession with icebreakers who wanted to buy up the poppy crop in Afghanistan. The public really need to reflect on these matters, and I do not apologise for raising them. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not here now, but it is not my fault if he chooses not to sit through the debate, or if he chooses to make his speech and then simply walk out.

There is one final matter that I want to raise. As the House probably knows, the Prime Minister asked me just before Christmas to lead a study into national recognition of the armed forces, which meant examining the extent to which the public understand, appreciate, identify with and support the armed forces. That study has now been completed and submitted to the Prime Minister, and I hope that it will be published very soon. Obviously I do not wish to anticipate the recommendations that it will make, but I want to make one point in that regard.

Our conclusions were twofold. First, it will not surprise the House to learn that there is enormous public support and gratitude for the armed forces in our country, and that it is deeply and widely felt. That comes out quite clearly in the homecoming parades and in the success of the charity appeals that have been held over the past few months. There has also been evidence of that support in our debate this afternoon. For example, my hon. Friend Mr. Kidney talked about the relationship between the general community in Stafford and the military personnel based in the barracks there. That is an interesting example of a medium-sized town in which a very good relationship of that kind can exist.

There is a widespread sense that members of the armed forces are very special. Most human beings would not be capable of spending six months of their lives in a desert without even the occasional drink, with none of the pleasures of family or social life, under constant threat of being seriously wounded or killed, sometimes living on ration packs—not, as is sometimes stupidly said in the tabloids, for months on end; that certainly does not happen, but it happens during the course of individual operations—and leading an austere and dangerous existence. The people who are prepared to do all that are extraordinary human beings. As I have said, they play an indispensable role, and civilisation would not last very long if there were no men and women prepared to do it. There have been one or two nasty incidents that appear to illustrate a certain hostility towards the armed forces, but they are the work of a very small twisted minority of people.

Our other conclusion was that, over the years, there has been an increasing separation between the armed forces and the rest of society, although not because anyone wanted that to happen. That separation is a reflection of two things. First, as each year goes by there are fewer people with experience of serving in uniform, or who have a close family member who has served in the armed forces. A generation or so ago, the second world war generation was still largely alive and every male—at least in principle—had done national service. Conscription ended in the early 1960s, but until then almost every family had a member with experience of the military. People understood the constraints, disciplines and dangers—as well as the camaraderie, pressure and tension—that accompany military operations. Such things were better understood in society as a whole then.

Secondly, a cultural change has taken place. I do not want to go outside the ambit of the debate, but it is generally agreed that, over the past 20 years, society has become increasingly hedonistic, short-termist and individualistic. Some might say that it has become more atomised, but I want my remarks to be a statement of fact rather than a long social critique. The fact is that the military must be based—they cannot be otherwise—on a more traditional ethos involving concepts such as public service, team effort, self-sacrifice, devotion to duty and discipline. The social and psychological divergence that has taken place is not healthy for the country as a whole or for the armed forces, because it means that people increasingly lack the familiarity, contact and knowledge on which positive feelings of gratitude and support for the military can be based. Therefore, our recommendations will be directed above all to finding ways to narrow the gap that I have identified.

Other countries have achieved that. The evidence from America is clear: 30 years ago, after the Vietnam war, the relations between the general public and the military were very bad. To anyone who knows America now, that is extraordinary, given the American public's support for, and identification with, the military. The relationship can only be described as symbiotic. It is immensely impressive and very moving, and of course we cannot move that far in one leap. Our traditions and psychology are very different—no doubt people will say that Americans are more effusive by nature than we British are—but nevertheless there are some interesting lessons to be drawn from other countries. For example, Canada and France are other democracies that regularly deploy troops in combat situations.

If our military are to do their job, it is very important that people support, understand and have contact with them. They need to feel that the pressures and sacrifices that they face are fully appreciated by the general public.